"Charles Ellson" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:08:55 +0100, wrote:

"Phil Wieland" wrote in message
...

So the only countries that currently have plastic notes all get the
Australian mint to print them for them, so take up of these types of
notes has been limited to smaller Pacific rim counties that don't have
their own currency printing facilities or don't mind 'out sourcing' it
to
Australia.

Doesn't the Isle of Man have plastic notes? Are theirs Australian as
well?

Not to my knowledge and not in my experience as I was there not too long
ago.

They had them in the 1980s, their main fault was that the ink came
off. One party trick was IIRC to put a 50p note in the oven and shrink
it.

They were made from Tyvek which was phonetically close to the Manx
Gaelic (thie-veg) for toilet/lavatory, thus "Tyvek paper" equated
closely enough for critics to "toilet paper". Unfortunately, the
aforementioned fault made them unsuitable for emergency use as such.

See also:-
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclop...ymer-banknotes

A Manx 50p note, you said? They had subunit banknotes? Interesting, indeed.
The only other nation that I know of with subunits in bankotes was the
50-cent note in the Bahamas. I don't doubt, however, that there are other
places in the world with similar notes.

I gave that information a glance and saw what was written about the Tyvek
notes. I also saw on Wikipedia that Plymer notes are currently in
circulation in areas close to Australia, such as Brunei, New Zealand,
Vietnam and Romania. But there is also something called Guardian polymer
notes, which are found in countries much further afield.

Apparently, Northern Ireland is one of the states that issue polymer
banknotes, though only for commemoratives.